


the name of the hound

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Series: Firebird [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fae & Fairies, Gen, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Part fae!Graves, Politics, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 16:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12084924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Percival Graves is stretched skin over sinew and bone, sharp teeth in a cavernous open mouth, and a loping hound that calls to Death like a lover. He is an unmarked grave in an abandoned lot, name lost to time. He is a story untold, until now.





	the name of the hound

**Author's Note:**

> you guys have no idea the demon this was to write. i've decided i like writing about graves when he isn't the main character of a fic. like. this was just an ordeal. i'm very happy it's over and pretty happy with the results.

Who is Percival Graves? Later in life, much later, after everything, he won’t know. He’ll think, was there even a Percival Graves? Did he exist?

But that’s later.

Now, Percival Graves is all of eleven years old and magic dances off his fingers like firelight, and his laughter echoes throughout the large estate. It’s summer, that muggy thick heat trapped inside the city that makes him want to itch out of his own skin.

The best thing about summer is this: it’s time to see grandma.

“Percy!” his mother calls, and Percival goes very still, closes his eyes, and then pops out in front of her. She flinches and grabs his wrists. “Percy!” she says again. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?” His brow furrows.

“It’s dangerous without a wand.”

“But Mama,” he protests.

“No.”

That’s just the first sign that he’s different--his magic must be pushed down and controlled.

-

Mama thinks Nana is scary. She doesn’t say so, but Percival watches things. He sees how Mama holds herself so still, how her shoulders hitch up slightly when Nana looks at her with her rainbow eyes. Sees how she flinches away whenever Nana touches her.

He doesn’t think Nana likes her much either.

He’s never understood this. Nana, who kneels down to his level, talks to him like he’s an adult. Nana, who makes her fingers spark with glittering power, who takes his hand and leads him through the manor, who tells him stories

_Your great-great ancestor was born in another land, boy,_ she says to him. _Where the air was thick and we were kings and queens. We held court and the humans respected us. They left us gifts, children, changelings. They believed and loved and feared us._

_What happened, Nana?_

_They stopped believing, and we started hiding._

-

How does one describe the Ilvermorny experience to an eleven-year-old with an overabundance of power and a lack of self control?

“Try not to stand out too much,” his father says to him before pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. Percival tries to press closer, holds out his hand for a final goodbye in their language. He grants him briefly, pressing their fingers together and letting their old magic converge. 

He’s chosen by two houses--Wampus and Horned Serpent and picks the first, but the first weeks are hard--hard to settle, hard to control his smiles and not show his teeth.

That was the first rule from Dad.

 _Percy,_ he says to him, multicolor eyes serious.

_Dad._

_Promise me you won’t smile too wide._

_Why?_

_The humans...the full bloods. Our kind aren’t well-liked. They’re scared of what they don’t trust._

And, so, Percival learns.

-

He meets Seraphina in his second year, though he feels her magic before he ever talks to her.

She’d been the talk of the school--chosen by all four houses, charming but cold.

 _She’s a bitch,_ he’d heard a girl in his house say. He eats quietly, listening.

_She thinks she’s better than all of us. Papa told me her family doesn’t even have any connections to America. They just showed up one year._

What does that matter, Percival wonders. What does a name even mean, in the long run.

And then he meets her, her magic making the hair on the back of his neck stand up and he bares his teeth at her without even meaning too, forgetting the rules.

Serapahina doesn’t even blink, just smirks at him and goes back to her work.

 _Dad,_ Percival writes later. _I’ve met a girl with magic so strong. It feels like ours, kind of. Are there others like me? Like us?_  
_(Can I tell someone about me? Dad, please, can I, can I),_ these are things he doesn’t write.

And later,

 _Dear Percival,_  
_There are no others like you in your year. Be careful and remember our rules._

Percival stares at the letter and wonders, thinks about the prospect of disobeying. Thinks about throwing away the rules and the name. What’s a name anyway? Who is Percival Graves, anyway?

-

New York is unbearable in the summer, especially the weeks before they go to Nana’s. Percival is thirteen, skin sticky with sweat even as he lays on the cool grass in Central Park, lazily watching two boys play with a pup. One of the boys has dark hair and bright green eyes, and Percival’s gaze lingers on the slender curve of his wrists before he looks away.  
A wet nose presses against his palm and he sits up, scratching the pup’s ears absently.

“Hey, pal!”

Percival looks up and squints. The boy grins at him, teeth very white against his tanned skin. He holds a ball. "Wanna join us?" 

The sun is hot and the dog barks excitedly, the boy’s pulse rabbits against his thumb when he grabs his hand to be pulled up. Percival watches a drop of sweat slide down his throat as he lets go of his hand.

Later, that night at the diner down the street, he meets a girl. She giggles when he kisses her and her lips taste like fresh strawberries.

-

“What kind of fae are we, Nana?” Percival asks, fourteen and sun-freckled and gnawing absently on the empty stick of a popsicle. 

She puts down the stone she is polishing, shimmering and violet, and looks at him. “Boy,” she says, as kind as her voice ever gets. “We don’t have territories anymore. That’s been taken from us.” She leans down and tips his chin up, and smiles, baring those sharp, sharp teeth. Her magic sparks along his jaw, and his eyes close.

“We used to be one with the forests, our kind.” Her voice is low, hypnotic, and Percival can see--

_Weedy trees, branches thin and spiraling out into the endless blue sky. Green grass and laughter, the scent of spring. The--fae, his family, with luminescent eyes and shimmering skin. The magic, it ripples out of them, their forms aren’t quite--their mouths open wide, too wide, and he thinks he sees teeth hidden behind teeth and their shadows have extra limbs and are those wings--_

“That’s enough,” Nana says, gripping his jaw. “You don’t have enough fae blood in you to see that.” Percival gasps quietly and nods, his skin tight, hair raised on the back of his neck.

She smiles, cupping his cheek. “That’s who we were, boy,” she says. “That’s the blood in you.”

-

He’s fifteen the first time he realizes what it’s like to connect to a magic so well when it isn’t his own, when it isn’t his father’s or Nana’s. It’s Seraphina, with her dark, dangerous eyes and her glittering purple wand, the one that people whisper about, shy away from. 

In the Nook of Necessity, they train together, fighting more than agreeing.

“Use your damn wand, Percival,” she says to him and he bares his teeth, shooting a spell at her with his hands that she easily evades.

“It’s got no precision,” she huffs, and takes his wand--Percival waits for the snarl to build in his throat because it’s his but it never does, her magic responding almost as well to it as if it were his own.

She curls Percival’s fingers around the hilt and steps back. “Now, do the same spell, but with that. Maybe this time you’ll be able to hit me.”

And, he does. 

-

“You know,” he tells Seraphina one day over lunch. “You’ve got a lot of wild magic too. You could probably go wandless as much as me.”

She chews on a celery stick slowly. “It’s just very. Uncontrolled, isn’t it?”

“Sera,” he smirks. “You could stand to let go a little.”

She scowls at him, but at their next meeting, she also lets him take her hand, press their palms together, and call her magic to the surface. When she lets go, her magic red like flames, rising hire, her eyes alight with power, he grins. Her magic feels like coming home.

-

During his seventh year, he asks Seraphina to the Winter Ball. She arches an eyebrow at him.

“Not taking that Horned Serpent boy you’ve been seeing?” she asks.

He shrugs one shoulder. “He’s not great conversation, if you know what I mean.”

She rolls her eyes. “What a ringing endorsement.” But her gaze is slightly fond. “I’m wearing a purple dress, so get a tie that matches.”

His parents aren’t pleased when they ask him who he’s going to the ball with, but then, they have never liked Seraphina. 

_Son,_ his father writes. _Surely there are plenty of suitable girls to ask. The Allen sisters, perhaps?_

 _There aren’t even suitable_ boys, _Father_ , he responds and is viciously pleased that he doesn’t get an owl back.

His mother tells him, “Percy, you have to think of the name.”

“Mother,” he says. “I would rather the name die than be stuck marrying a girl who bores me.”

Nana is delighted. Ever since they'd met, she'd loved her. _Make sure Seraphina wears these, my boy,_ she writes in her letter, including a handful of small pins decorated with glittering jewels. _And then tell Seraphina to send me a picture of the two of you along with the jewels. I know you’ll just lose them._

On the night of the ball, Percival turns the corner to the Wampus hallway and sees her leaning against the corner, staring boredly at her fingernails. Her hair is in a complicated updo, and the jewels shimmer against the silver strands. 

“You look like a fae, Sera,” he tells her and she slides her hand into his arm.

She tilts her head, looking at him with slitted feline eyes. “Thank you.” She flicks the slight pointed curve of his ear.

“Unfortunately, nothing can help that dreadful hair of yours.”

Percival pouts at her and she tugs lightly at a strand of his long hair, then leads him onto the dance floor.

-

“Percival,” his mother says, voice cold. He looks, tilting his head curiously.

“Mother,” he says neutrally. 

“We don’t want you seeing that girl anymore.” 

His eyes narrow. “I think that’s my own choice, isn’t it?”

“She is...not suitable for a name like yours.”

Percival bares his teeth and his mother takes a step back, paling. It’s the first time he’s purposefully shown her his canines. A threat. “Mother,” he says again. “You sent me to Ilvermorny for what? To find a bride? To make more Graves babies?” He shakes his head. “I don’t care about the family name.”

“Percy.”

“I don’t! What good is it for when it keeps you blind to talent? Why don’t you like Seraphina, mother? Is it because she has no name?” He meets her gaze head on. “Or is it because of the color of her skin?”

His mother’s eyes flash. “That isn't true--you’re too young to know what you’re talking about.”

“So I’m too young for this but I’m old enough to find a wife?” Percival snorts. “We wizards think we’re so much better than no-majes, but at the end of the day, we’re all the same.” 

He sees his mother struggle with something, opening her mouth and then closing it again. She lets out a slow breath, her face taking on the same benign calm as usual. 

“One day,” she says quietly. “You’ll understand why we’re doing this. It’s for your own good.” Percival narrows his eyes as he watches her leave. He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand. What’s in a name if you’re always bound by it? If you can’t change the rules and become someone new?

-

The summer after graduation he spends with Nana and his cousins, a rowdy, too-fae bunch whose laughter sound like songs and whose teeth are razor sharp.

“Mother,” his father says before he leaves, quiet like he thinks Percival can’t hear him. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Why not?” she asks with a snort. “That boy of yours is more fae than you and he’s got less blood to account for it.”

“What if he comes back feral?”

“Son,” Nana says. “What’s wrong with that?”

His lips purse but he leaves without much fuss, smiling tightly at one of the cousin’s cheerful goodbyes. Percival watches him go.

“Go on,” Nana tells him after a moment. “Go play with the little ones.”

The little ones aren’t so little--older than Percival by a few hundred years, but faces so young and unlined and youthful that they look no more than sixteen. One of them, Saoirse, reaches out to touch his face, giggling a little at the feel of fuzz along his jaw.

“So strange,” she says, voice twinkling, and he makes a face. “We don’t grow these.”

“No?”

“Oh, no,” she says. “Ever wonder why your papa never has a beard? You’re so human.”

It doesn’t feel like an insult. No, he’s a curiosity--they love him. Saoirse clings to him at all times, Killian makes Percival braid his long blond hair, Galahad teaches him to make music out of the air around him.

They teach him language, one he can’t even describe, one he knows deep down inside himself, an untouched thing tangled inside his chest. 

“Orlaith,” Galahad says while Percival lazily listens, his head in Saoirse's lap as she presses her fingers to his temple.

“Mm?” Nana looks up.

“Can we take him on a Hunt?”

Nana looks thoughtful. “Percival?”

Percival grunts and forcibly pushes Saoirse's hands away, then looks at Nana.

“He is of age,” Killian says. The air around them changes, and Percival feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he licks his lip, tasting something hungry in the air. 

“Look at him,” Saoirse coos with a feral grin. “Silver-eyed.”

Percival makes a quiet noise when Nana reaches out to tip his chin up. “Show me those teeth, boy,” she says, and he bares them in a parody of a smile.

She lets him go and leans back, nodding. “Stay on the grounds.”

-

When a fae child comes of age, they are taken on their first Hunt. 

_Percival._ He hears the voice as if from a distance, a soft, slow whisper, gentle hands on the back of his neck. _Forget who you are, who you have been. Connect to the beginnings, to all of us._ Through the silver haze of his eyes, he sees Saoirse's long black hair, her piercing cat-like eyes glowing bright blue. He sees Killian’s mouth open in a wide, sharp grin, sees teeth behind teeth and a dark black figure rising through him, huge and wild with too many limbs and endless eyes.

It doesn’t hurt to look at him like it did before, when he saw this vision years ago. Galahad lets out a fierce, animal-like cry and his teeth elongate, blue blood dripping from cut lips, feline grace in every purposeful movement. 

_Do I look like that?_ He asks, breathless, and he feels something wet on his lips, sees blood on his fingers come out black. 

_Yes,_ Saoirse laughs. _Oh, look at you._ She reaches up above him and touches...something, something he can feel, something that pushes him out of his body and he can see the tops of trees, streaks of colors in the air--he can see magic, Saoirse surrounded by gold, Galahad is green, Killian a deep, violent purple, all this he sees and then he’s back in his regular body and he gasps, stumbling, but hands pull him up, so many hands, he grasps at them blindly and they’re running, chasing a stream of silver magic up ahead.

 _You can’t keep the form as long as we can,_ Saoirse tells him, tugging him so he’s running faster, faster than he thinks is possible, fresh air in his lungs and a guttural low noise in his throat. _But you have it. You’ll always have that form._

 _Come, Saoirse,_ Killian says. _Let him go. Let him hunt._

If asked to describe the Hunt, Percival would not be able to. He can remember images--following Killian’s golden hair and purple magic. Catching glimpses of the silver prey, of antlers dotted in glitter and hooves made of stardust. Of tinkling laughter, of pack, of predators. He remembers holding something beating in his palms, of blood sliding down his lips when he takes the first bite. 

He remembers sharing, remembers all of them more magic than creature, hardly touching the ground.

He remembers waking up curled up in the grass, Galahad’s arm thrown over his waist, Saoirse's hair tickling his face, and Killian’s legs on his stomach. He remembers feeling full, feeling like magic was seeping out of his fingers, out of his skin.

He doesn’t remember getting up, doesn’t remember all of them wandering the grounds, aimless--but he does remember the feeling of weightlessness. Remembers touching his tongue to his teeth and closing his eyes against the beating sun. 

Somehow, they make it back. Nana takes one look at them, and touches Percival’s cheek. “Oh,” she murmurs. “Looks like you'll be going back home a bit wild after all.”

He won’t realize it until his father comes to pick him up, but he won’t speak English for the rest of the time he’s there. He won’t know until he greets his father and the words are rough on his tongue, harsh and unused. Won’t see Father and Nana arguing in the kitchen because Saoirse and Killian and Galahad keep reaching for him.

“Don’t go, little changeling,” Galahad says. “Stay with us. We have so much more to teach you.”

Percival grips his hand tightly. “He has to go,” Saoirse says, cupping his cheek. “Come back to us, little human.”

Killian laughs and ruffles Percival’s hair. “Not so human really, after all.”

“Percival!” 

He sighs. “I’ll come back,” he says to them.

“We’re counting on it,” Saoirse replies, then kisses his forehead.

Outside near the car, his father forcibly grips his chin and tilts it up. He scowls. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. Until you can learn to control yourself again, you can’t even be seen.” He shakes his head and lets go of him. “Get in the car. Try not to look too out of place.”

Already, Percival misses the manor.

-

When he asks Seraphina to move in with him, it’s purely selfish. He’s antsy, feels trapped in his skin and dreams every night of the open skies and green lush fields, of the hunt and magic untapped. It’s selfish, because it’s only with Seraphina that he feels some semblance of calm, that he feels her magic, wild and untamed under her skin, and knows he isn’t the only one with something yearning inside him, desperate to be set free.

It’s just a bonus that it pisses his parents off, just a bonus that Seraphina likes to make everyone mad at every decision she makes.

“Graves,” she says after a week, leaning against the doorway of his room. He looks up and realizes he’s been pacing for an hour already. “Are you alright?”

He licks his lips, tastes a bit of that same hunger from that summer, and forces himself to relax. “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t push it. Percival almost wishes she would.

-

His parents die when he’s nineteen. A freak accident, they say--a no-maj automobile careened into them. By the time they realized what was going to happen, it was too late. 

He thinks he should feel something, some sort of grief, some sort of sadness. All he can think of is his father’s rough hands on his face, telling him to control himself. Of his mother looking at him with that serene expression, saying, you’ll understand when you’re older. He is older, and he still won’t ever understand their opinions, their thoughts, their reasoning.

At the end of the funeral, he stares at their grave markers. Something acidic burns on his tongue, and he lights a cigarette, taking a deep drag. 

The scent of death and decay lingers around him, and he watches smoke curl into the sky. Watches a part of himself die alongside them. 

“Graves,” Seraphina says, voice quiet. Something inside him purrs at the name, and he drops his cigarette, squashing it with his shoe. Percival is gone. 

Now he’s just like them, two hollow graves dug into the soil.

-

It’s been a few weeks since the funeral and he thinks he might be drunk. He hasn’t had a drop to drink but he hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours, and everything is looking hazy and unfocused. For a moment, Seraphina looks like she’s surrounded by silver and he blinks it away. 

“Sera,” he murmurs, and Seraphina blinks at him, just as tired. She touches his hair, newly cut and pushed away from his face.

“Sera,” he says again, a little more urgently, and she tugs at his hair, pulling him closer, tangled on a bed, though right now he doesn’t know if it’s Seraphina’s or his own. 

“Let me,” he murmurs and buries his face against her shoulder, pressing his nose to her neck. She smells like magic, raw and unbridled, like smoke and fire, like exhaustion and sweat. 

She shifts and curls both her hands in his hair. “Okay,” she says, voice low and lazy and soft, “Okay.” And he loses himself, in her smooth skin and quiet sighs, her nails digging into his scalp, the taste of her on his tongue and teeth.

Later, he falls asleep feeling full, magic tangled up in Seraphina’s, content like the end of a Hunt.

-

“War is coming,” Graves tells Seraphina. She looks at him tiredly. 

“I know.”

He grips her wrist loosely. “Do you have the necklace?”

She smiles crookedly. “I never take it off.”

The magic in him calms--Seraphina is family, and the jewel will protect her.

-

War feels like a Hunt, Graves thinks, with less crackling magic and more decay. More rot. He follows Seraphina near the beginning, watches her climb and stays at her side. They are ghosts, the two of them--fire and smoke and ashes. 

He remembers the last fight before they were split, when their commander died and Seraphina effortlessly took control, and she ordered and he went, killing for her, ripping throats and snarling and his eyes going silver.

He remembers after that, when they had been reprimanded, and he’d still had blood on his teeth and Seraphina had snapped back. _What would you have had us do?_ Full of fury and anger and fierce, raw power, fingers crackling red.

And everyone had gone silent and wary, and he’d smirked at them just to watch the fear in their eyes grow.

Promotions for them both. And then a split. Sent away from each other.

-

He meets Theseus Scamander a year into the war. He’s already known--a monster-slayer, a red-headed devil.

A handful of British and American wizards are assigned together for a few missions. Theseus is in charge, Graves is second. 

“Scamander, is it?” Graves asks, dragging his eyes down his body. Theseus is watching him.

“You must be the Hound.”

Graves smirks. “Is that what they call me?”

“You and your Phoenix made quite the impression. One of our generals expressed interest in meeting her.”

Graves snorts. “Good luck with that.” 

Theseus grins wryly. “Does the Hound have a name?”

“Graves,” he says. 

“Fitting.”

Theseus is a good commander, if a bit brash, a bit war-hungry. But that’s what they’ve all become, ravenous for blood and flesh and rot. He kills a man with his teeth in front of Theseus a week into their partnership, and when he looks up he sees that Theseus’ eyes are dark. He licks his lips and watches him follow the movement. Interesting.  
A monster-slayer who wants the monster.

-

It’s Christmastime and he’s still with the British. There’s a hollow peace, wary and quiet, like the calm before a violent storm. Graves lays out in the grass, staring up at the night sky. He closes his eyes and feels the soft thrumming of magic beneath the surface of the earth. Untouchable to him but it’s there and comforting. 

Someone sits near him. “Theseus,” he murmurs, not opening his eyes.

“Did you know your eyes go silver, right before a kill?” he says. Graves turns to look at him, studying his profile in the dark--a firm jaw, soft plush lips, long eyelashes and a gently sloping nose. 

“Do they?” he asks neutrally.

“What are you?”

Graves smiles, slow, predatory, showing his teeth, and he sees the moon reflected in Theseus’ eyes. 

“What do you think I am?”

Theseus licks his lips and Graves growls, quiet. 

He shivers. “I don’t know.” He sounds breathless. 

Graves reaches out to touch his cheek, feels the heat of a blush on his skin. Theseus swallows and Graves feels hungry, dragging his fingers along the line of his jaw, the curve of his earlobe. 

“Look at you,” he says, pressing his thumb to the divot of his jaw, just under his ear, to see the shudder run through him. There’s something heady in having the monster-slayer pliant for him, weak for one he would have killed at any other time. If he knew what Graves was. Something about that makes him want to press his teeth into his throat and take a bite.

Theseus’ breath comes in ragged gasps, his hands clenched tight in the grass. When he finally slants their mouths together, it’s just to swallow the whine building in Theseus’ throat.

-

There’s something frantic about a war fling. Taking any chance to press together, to hide gasps in each other’s mouths, nails dragging down each other’s backs. Theseus is needy when they’re together, chasing at his mouth, and going gratifyingly limp whenever Graves’ presses his teeth against his skin.

When they can get time alone, and in a bed, Graves likes to spread him out, to see the soft flush that slides down his body, to see him bite his lips to keep from crying out. 

Once, only once, he climbs back into the trenches, wiping blood from his mouth, and Theseus presses him against the muddy wall, eyes wild, hands everywhere. 

“Theseus,” he hisses.

“Just let me,” he says, and Graves grips the back of his neck, fingers sliding into the hair curled along the nape, and does.

-

The thing about war is that it makes you angry. It makes you sick. It makes you want to tear yourself out of your skin. Graves thinks about Saoirse, Killian, and Galahad, thinks about his Nana, thinks about the raw joy of his first Hunt, when he was eating the hearts of creatures who gave themselves to him willingly. 

Now, he takes forcefully and it feels like decay. He presses his tongue along his teeth, tastes raw flesh and blood, and his wand crackles with Unforgivables. He feels sick with humanity, feels sick with human blood and disease. 

_How do you do it?_ He remembers asking Saoirse the last time he’d visited. _How do you live among humans and still remember who you are?_

 _You don’t,_ she’d said. _You have to leave sometimes. Get away from them. Or else you’ll be trapped in their skin. Like your father was._

He gets that chance. Theseus, wild-eyed and burning and angry, spitting swears about a command meeting he’d just been to. “They won’t let us chase him. A Dark Wizard, killing muggles and civilians alike, and they won’t let us go chase him. Not important, they say.”

“Let’s go,” Graves says, watching him. He’s very still, scenting the air. 

“What?”

“Let’s go,” Graves says again. “Let’s chase him ourselves.”

Theseus looks conflicted. “We’ll be deserting.”

Graves smirks. “And if we catch him, we’ll be treated like heroes.”

Theseus bites his lip and Graves watches him, eyes slitted, waiting. He’ll go without him if he must, but there’s something about taking a human with him, taking war-hungry, desperate Theseus as his ally, that he wants. It feels like his time with Seraphina except flipped--where he looked to her for leadership, now he wants to make Theseus look to him.

He sees the moment when Theseus decides, where his shoulders square and his jaw clenches, and his bright blue eyes narrow. He starts to smile.

-

Graves doesn’t remember what his skin looks like clean, doesn’t remember what his nails look like without blood and dirt caked under them. He doesn’t remember what Theseus looks like with a clean shaven face, the exact shade of red his hair is when it isn’t covered in mud. Graves curls his tongue along his teeth, tasting ash and dust. He shifts, trying to gain feeling back in his legs, and lets his eyes go silver, thinking of his shadow other-figure. For a split second he’s taller than even the trees, can see the blues and greens and blacks of magic users in the woods. 

When he comes back to himself, Theseus is staring at him. His eyes look oddly reptilian, a faint film of yellow over the irises. “He’s to the north,” Graves says. “Not far from us.”

Theseus nods and stands up smoothly, scratching at his beard. Graves loves to watch him think, his brilliant tactical mind moving quickly to figure out their best route. Graves is smart and good at planning, but there’s something about the way Theseus can put together a plan that appeals to him. He much prefers being pointed to the target and unleashed. 

“Thee,” Graves murmurs, curling his fingers around the back of his neck. Theseus takes a slow breath and then lets it out. 

“Let’s go.”

-

The story here is not about the wizard--of course they caught him, the monster and the monster-slayer. The story is of what brought them back, of what it took to bring Graves and Theseus back to the land of the humans. Graves, more fae than he’s been in years, eyes permanently silver and Theseus gone cold and calculating like a snake, with that golden sheen to his eyes.

A letter delivered by a brave hawk, smelling faintly of ash and smoke. It floats in the air after Graves opens it. 

“I don’t know where the hell you all are, but if you don’t come back soon, they’re going to throw you both out with dishonorable discharges. I’ve covered for you enough. Get your asses back here,” Seraphina’s voice says, sounding sharp and thin and tired.

For the first time in days, the silver recedes from Graves’ eyes and he swears. “How long have we been out here?”

Theseus looks bewildered. “I don’t--I don’t know.” They stare at each other, their minds clear. The Hunt is over.

-

“Don’t do that again,” Sera says to him when she sees him. There are lines along her eyes and lips, and her face is gaunt. The fire inside her is banked, almost out, and Graves’ magic jumps to try to meet hers. He squashes it ruthlessly down. 

“Sera--”

She shakes her head sharply.

“Did you get what you needed?” she asks. Are you back now? He meets her eyes and nods.

“Good,” she sighs, and slumps back into her seat. 

“Phina,” he tries again, voice softer still, and he reaches out to touch the gem on her finger. She lets out a shaky sigh and watches him bring more of his fae magic into the jewel, watching it glow under his touch. 

“You were run shallow,” he murmurs. She just nods, quiet. The gentle softness of her lips and cheeks have gone sharp, through stress and constant movement and paranoia. 

“They have...pulled from me,” she says quietly. He frowns, taking the ring off her finger.

“They shouldn’t have. It’s only for our kind of blood.” 

She shrugs tiredly, running a hand over her face. The bones stick out from the fragile skin of her wrist. 

“What was it your grandmother told us?” she asks, tracing idly along the maps on her desk. “Our magics connect. Maybe they do so in this way too.”

He kneels at her feet, pressing a hand to her knee, waiting. She finally meets his eyes.

“You aren’t fae,” he says urgently. Her lips quirk and she shakes her head, slow. “No,” she says. “But i might be Other just the same.”

She pushes his hand off her knee. “Go find the Brit,” she says. “I’m sure he’s just gotten the lashing of his life for that stunt you two pulled.” He stares at her for a moment, questioning, and she nods.

\--

Theseus is separated from Graves and it makes his teeth ache to have him so far. It’s not a surprise after what they’d done, but it stings all the same. It hurts even more that they keep him far from Seraphina, makes him violent and ill-tempered and volatile.

 _Little changeling_ , a voice whispers one night while he’s having a smoke, staring at the way it curls in the air. _Our kin miss you,_ the voice says, musical and weightless.

“How are Saoirse, Killian, and Gal?” he asks, putting his cigar out.

_Missing you._

Graves is quiet and a woman forms out of the shadows. Her hair is so light as to be silver, reminding him faintly of Seraphina, and her eyes are green and shrewd. When she touches his wrist, it feels like dew.

_You stay too long in the world of humans._

“They’re mine too,” he says, watching her. Her lips curve up and reveal a row of pointed teeth. The glamour on her is thin.

 _Yes._ She trails a finger along the slight point of his ear.

_The war will be over soon. Your battle will not be._

He frowns. “What’s that mean?”

The fae just smiles again and touches his cheek. _Tell your grandmother the Sidhee have done their part,_ she says, and melts back into the shadows.

\--

This is how the it ends, the war, the thing with Theseus, the hot-swooping-belly feeling in your stomach when you look at him. The mud drips in Graves’ eyes and he snarls, dark and feeling it deep in his gut.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, gripping Theseus’ hair in in one hand. “You don’t get to say that to me, you of all people."

Theseus laughs wildly, the whites in eyes showing. He looks crazed, like the monster he tries so desperately to think he is not.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” he snaps, not even struggling. Water slides down his face, and Graves hates himself for how his eyes stray to follow the path down the curve of his jaw. “You’re just a dog, deep deep down. A little bitch for her.”

There’s something strange in his voice, a little catch in his breath, and if Graves wasn’t seeing red, he might pick it apart, might push and push until Theseus broke under him, until his yelling turned to soft gasps and trembling fingers.

“You weren’t supposed to be like this,” Graves growls and shoves him hard. Theseus stumbles and laughs breathlessly, holding his hands out.

“You can’t expect me to always be okay being second fiddle to her, Graves,” he says. “You can’t expect me to have actually fallen for you.”

Graves bares his teeth and a sick part of himself delights in the way Theseus’ pulse jumps, the fear in his eyes. Around them, the camp is waking--a cannon has gone off, a battle has begun.

It all feels so tired, so rote. 

This is how a war fling ends--pieces of them strewn across a battlefield, sharp eyes gone silver and a low snarl. _We’re done._

When Graves leaves, he doesn’t look back. If he did, he’d see Theseus with a face like he’s been torn apart.

\--

“Visit him,” Seraphina tells him. He’s still mud-streaked, and his hands are covered in blood. Theseus’ blood.

“He made it clear what he felt about me.”

Seraphina sighs, loud and long-suffering. “Visit him, you idiot.”

Graves bares his teeth at her but she doesn’t even flinch. Damn her.

He goes.

He’s pale, auburn hair damp from the fever, eyes moving rapidly under the lids. He swallows, something in his chest hurting, and he smooths a hand over his forehead.

“You stupid bastard,” he says quietly. 

He leaves, having pressed a note into his hands and a gentle whisper to his skin.

\--

They say that there is no ending to a war. 

Graves supposed that’s right. He’s home but he still sees ghosts. A long gash up his side turns into a silvery scar. His apartment feels like a tomb without Seraphina there to fill up the empty spaces.

He rings up the one person he can. 

“Nana?”

“Oh, just come visit, you silly boy.”

\--

Saoirse wraps him up in a hug as soon as she sees him, pressing her face to the hollow of his throat. She looks the same--perhaps more eighteen than sixteen these days, but her eyes are old and sad. 

“You smell like death, little cousin.”

He laughs and it sounds hollow to his own ears. Nana ruffles his hair and he looks at her.

“I got a message for you.” While I was there, he doesn’t say.

She raises her eyebrow.

“The Sidhee have done their part.”

Nana’s face looks grave and she nods after a moment. “Thank you, my boy.”

Graves knows better than to ask. “Where are the others?”

Saoirse grins, shaking out her hair. “Galahad has moved up in the world,” she says. “He’s in our realm. Killian should be here in 3, 2…”

“Little cousin!” Killian crows and wraps his arms around him. Graves manages to smile and rests his forehead on Killian’s shoulder. “Have you come to stay?”

“For a little while.”

Saoirse kisses his forehead. “We have much to show you.”

\--

There is nothing to be said for his time with his fae family. When Graves is less human and more Other, when he hardly thinks in thoughts. A period of time where time itself of meaningless, when he looks back and all his human mind can remember is the taste of still-beating deer heart, the violet of Killian’s eyes and the gold of Saoirse’s teeth.

Words can’t describe the not-human body his form takes, one that stretches higher than the tallest trees and smaller than the littlest mouse. When he comes back to himself, his teeth feel too big for his mouth, and the space between his eyes throbs.

“Don’t take so long to come back to us, little one,” Saoirse says. Killian squeezes his hand with a small smile.

“I won’t,” Graves says, kissing both their foreheads.

It will be a long time before he sees them again.

\--

Graves and Seraphina have aged what feels like years since they’ve seen each other last. But Sera looks determined and her eyes are hard, and Graves is helpless to do anything but follow her. He has already done so to the ends of the earth, after all. While she campaigns, he gathers people under him.

He meets an auror-in-training he's impressed with. Her name is Porpentina. She’s is taller than him, with sharp features and a mouth that’s slow to smile. He likes her, takes her under his wing. She comes with a sister who is much more powerful than she looks. A sister who stares at him for a long moment, something like confusion on her face, before her mouth firms. “You better not get her killed,” she says, voice low and fierce.

“I’ll try not to,” he says. 

“Do so.”

He’s a bit scared of her.

When Seraphina wins the presidency, it’s expected. It’s inevitable. 

He’s ready to follow her for the rest of his life, his good name be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think!
> 
> my tumblr is resistanceposterboy.tumblr.com if yall wanna come talk


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